Mirror, Mirror
by woodbyne
Summary: He recognises the face in the mirror in the way that someone recognises a photo of themselves taken in years long since passed. The face was… similar. The structure of it was absolutely identical, but at the same time, it was horribly different. 1p/2p Canadacest. Matthew's not quite sure who's in his bathroom mirror, or why he's so enamoured with the stranger, but it's not him.
1. Mirror, Mirror

**I don't quite know what this is, but the folkies on tumblr seemed to like it, so I figured you lot might.**

He recognises the face in the mirror in the way that someone recognises a photo of themselves taken in years long since passed. The face was… similar. The structure of it was absolutely identical, but at the same time, it was horribly different. While Matthew was naturally pale (he knew because he'd stuck a photo of his face up beside the mirror, just so that he knew he wasn't going crazy) his reflection was the kind of pale that came from several millennia spent adapting to live in caves.

The eyes were sunken; lonely and seeking and so much brighter and more vivid than Matthew's own. Deep, dark hollows, gouged out by the small hours, surrounded them. They watched as Matthew felt his face, trying to judge where the differences between them were, watching his strange reflection as it copied his movements. Not accurately, mind. Copied like a dyslexic three rows back trying to cheat off you in French. The movements were sluggish and half-hearted – a skype video call with a bad connection.

But when the reflection was moving on its own – and it did – then the movements were languid, but precise. The hair –too red. The smile (in the brief moments it appeared) – too feral. The posture – too careless. So similar and yet so far apart. Sometimes Matthew would reach out and touch the glass in front of him, to see if he could feel the warmth of this stranger's reflected fingers. But his reflection's hands remained on the countertop in front of him.

There were other differences, the befuddled Canadian noted, once he was able to tear his eyes away from the other Matthew. There was a robe behind the door that wasn't his, and the bottle of cologne that Alfred had given him last Christmas didn't seem to reflect, no matter where he put it. Also, the other Matthew's razor looked like it might bite (judging by the occasional band aid, that assumption was correct).

"Who are you?" he asked, mesmerised in front of the bathroom mirror, one cheek smooshed against the fist that was holding up his head. Days had turned into weeks, weeks to months, and still, the man in his mirror was quite decidedly not him.

The sharp, wicked smile he had only seen a few times before drew back over ruddy gums and teeth that were just a fraction too pointed for comfort. Leaning forward against his side of the counter, he blew against it, heavy panting breaths. Once the other Matthew was obscured, a finger set against the glass, squeaking like nails on a chalkboard as it wrote.

WEHTTAM

And underneath that,

.UOY MA I

"Me?" he asked incredulously, "So I suppose your name is Matthew, too?"

The words on the mirror were fading, but the hand that swiped across the mirror, removing the WEH left no ambiguities as to its intention.

"Matt," Matthew breathed; eyes wide and awed. Leaning forward, he took his turn blowing on the mirror, his fingers retracing Matt's letters, and adding his own.

.EITTAM

~====o)0(o====~

"_Must_ you dress like a lumberjack, _p'tit_?" Francis sighed, and Matthew looked down at his shirt. Classic red plaid. It wasn't a bad shirt, as shirts went. It was worn soft and comfortable in all the right places. This was somebodies favourite shirt, and it smelt like them in a way that didn't smell like Mattie. It was also a size or two too big.

"It's Pringle," Matthew said reproachfully, only half objecting and mostly just wishing to be left alone to his introspection.

"Even Chanel can create dishrags," the Frenchman shrugged, pursing his lips and wandering off to criticise someone else's fashion sense. Only to be replaced by Miguel and the solid wall of tobacco-smell he always wore.

"Mattie!" he said happily, slapping the Canadian on the back and making him cough with the combination of brute force and the aroma of cigars, "I haven't seen you in ages! You should come over this weekend; hang out a little."

"Sorry, Miguel; I've got a metric tonne of paperwork to do, maybe next time?" Quiet indigo eyes pleaded with the Cuban to just smile and keep on walking. He just wanted to think. He just wanted to go home and stare at himself in the mirror and try and figure out the little things that added up to two different people. He wanted to see how Matt would react to his counterpart wearing his shirt.

"Ok, that's okay. Next time, sure," Miguel just laughed it off, shrugging easily, "Hey, is that a new shirt? It looks good on you."

"Hmmm? This? No, this is an old favourite."

~====o)0(o====~

Matt was already there when Mattie walked in, and he was without his shirt. He was just tucking the end of a bandage into the swathe that wrapped around his chest and up over his shoulder. Piled on the counter was a discarded pile of gauze; stained with crusts of sickness brown and honeyed yellow, spotted with fading red.

Mattie's palms pressed flat to the glass, feeling impotent and helpless; trapped in his own world. Matt rolled his eyes and huffed a sigh; he imitated his double, palms to glass.

There was warmth there, a hand resting against his. Eyes wide, the original Canuck (or that's what he told himself he was) stared. He was no dear in the headlights; no predator versus prey. But rather he saw the prey in the predator, and reflected in those too-vivid eyes, he saw the predator in himself.

"Don't you look at me with those eyes, chickadee," Matt murmured, and Mattie could feel hot breath against his face, see the twisted tenderness behind cruelty.

"What eyes, then?" one Canadian said to the other.

"Closed ones," If it wasn't for the glass between them, they would have been touching – though Mattie wasn't so sure if there was a mirror between them at all. His eyes slipped shut, heart thudding in his chest.

Between their lips, the cold tang of glass seemed to melt.


	2. On The Wall

**Entertain Me**

"Entertain me," Matt says suddenly, rocking back in the chair that now sits in front of the bathroom mirror, his long legs thrown carelessly onto the marble counter top.

Mattie snorted, cheek resting on folded arms, "And how exactly do you propose I do that? Go Fish?"

"Nope," the word pops like bubble-gum in the silence, with the same pressing of lips and snapping of teeth, and the way Matt's tongue lingers along his bottom lip, he might as well be licking up the sticky sweet remnants, "Take a shower. Like you did last night."

Matthew's blood froze in his veins. Last night he had- Last night- "You weren't here!" the words are barely spoken, having used all their volume to climb up his throat.

"No, I was here," the bright-eyed Canadian's voice is also soft, but for a whole other reason, "Where you go; I go. Just because you can't see me doesn't mean that I'm not… oh, shall we say sitting on the floor, listening to you pant my name while you finger-fuck yourself?"

A mortified white, the other simply stares.

"Or do you know any other Matts I should know about?" There is a possessive note in Matt's voice, as though he would find this fabled other Matt and make him suffer. He may have been behind glass, but Matthew didn't doubt he could.

Dumbly, Mattie shakes his head.

"Good," Matt purrs, hands spreading flat palmed against the countertop, pulling himself up onto it and leaning forward so that his forehead touches glass, "Now why don't you be a good host an entertain me?"

"You … you want to watch me masturbate?" The cogs in Matthew's mind are creaking and groaning as they try to process the information his body is already responding to. His heart is thudding against his ribs hard enough to break something. Air refuses to fill his lungs and his skin is heating up as though some kind soul has replaced his blood with napalm.

"Yeah. I want to watch you writhe and beg. I want to watch you cum, screaming our name and aching for my cock," there are no signs in Matt's expression or in his tone that he's said anything vaguely untoward. No hint of sexual deviance; and it makes Mattie tug at the collar of his shirt to think that his reflection sounds like he's ordering a meal. He knows he'll get what he wants.

A deep breath trembles in his lungs as Mattie pops the first button on his shirt and then the second. His fingers shake with anticipation but he doesn't fumble the fastenings and soon enough, one white dress shirt hangs open over his chest.

"Touch yourself," He's entranced by his reflection. Bewitched. A little smirk – the very mirror image of Matt's – graces his lips and his hands begin their decent, slowly moving down over his pale chest. Mattie obeys.


	3. Who's The Fairest One Of All?

**Narcissism**

"Some people would call this narcissism," Matt sighed pulling his damp hair back, the ends stained auburn with water. He stood, completely unashamed of his nudity before the bathroom mirror, his scars on proud display for Mattie to admire.

"And others would call this insanity. Who do you want to believe?" the other Canadian said flippantly, shrugging on the other's shirt, and feeling a little smile curl involuntarily at his mouth as Matt's dark-ringed eyes watch him possessively from the other side of the glass.

"Why believe anyone who isn't you or me?" the reflection answered carelessly, water falling from his hair and leaving dewdrops across his shoulders, precariously poised to roll down his back and chest at the slightest tremor.

"So I shouldn't second guess either of us?" Matthew laughed, doing up Matt's shirt.

"I don't need anyone who isn't me. You shouldn't either." There it is again, that same, possessive hungriness that was in the reflection's eyes was all too shiver-inducingly present in his voice.

"Now _that_ is narcissism."


	4. Through The Looking Glass

"I'm just going to make some popcorn, Mattie," Alfred grinned lazily, his hand lingering on the Canadian's shoulder as he walked past and through to the kitchen.

"Go easy on the salt this time," Matthew called back, twisting around to watch the American pass, the way Alfred nibbled his lip and went a little pink going whistling as they flew over his head.

Matt beckoned from a glass door, his expression positively murderous.

Getting up obediently, Mattie strolled over, leaning against the glass to feel the warmth from somewhere inside the pane, "What's wrong?" he whispered to his reflection, not wanting to get caught chatting up the door.

"Call me old fashioned," Matt hissed, "But I always did favour monogamy."

"_What_?" the other Canadian asked, completely nonplussed.

"He's had his hands all over you all day," the reflection complained bitterly, his own stroking a path from shoulder to hip over the cool glass, heating it a little.

"It's just Alfred," Mattie protested, completely bewildered as hands grabbed at him through the sluggish barrier of glass.

"What you don't seem to understand," Matt growled, "Is that I am you. My body is yours. That means your body is _mine_. And you may not have noticed, but I_really_ don't like sharing."

"What, Matt- wait, _no_, not here!" the other Canadian struggles against the hands that grip his hips and pull him hard against the flat surface of the glass, and little by little, _through_ it.

"Hey, Mattie what's-?" Alfred stopped, mouth open and popcorn falling in a slow cascade across the carpeted floor as he blinked, trying to process what was happening.

Matt grinned, his sharpest, pointiest, most possessive grin.

"Al, I'm really sorry about-" before Mattie can finish his sentence, Matt tugged him through, leaving only a hand print on the inside of the glass.


End file.
